The present invention relates to magnetic tape storage systems, and more specifically, this invention relates to methods for wrapping a multi-module head.
Business, science and entertainment applications depend upon computers to process and record data, often with large volumes of the data being stored or transferred to nonvolatile storage media, such as magnetic discs, magnetic tape cartridges, optical disk cartridges, floppy diskettes, or floptical diskettes. Typically, magnetic tape is the most economical and convenient means of storing or archiving the data. Storage technology is continually pushed to increase storage capacity and storage reliability. Improvement in data storage densities in magnetic storage media, for example, has resulted from improved medium materials, improved magnetic read/write heads, improved error correction techniques and decreased areal bit sizes. The data capacity of half-inch magnetic tape, for example, is now measured in thousands of gigabytes on 2000 or more data tracks.
An important and continuing goal in the data storage industry is that of increasing the density of data stored on a medium. For tape storage systems, that goal has led to increasing the track density on recording tape, and decreasing the thickness of the magnetic tape medium. However, the development of higher performance tape drive systems has created various problems in the design and manufacture of a tape head assembly for use in such systems.
In a tape drive system, magnetic tape is moved over the surface of the tape head at high speed. This movement generally entrains a film of air between the head and tape. Usually the tape head is designed to minimize the spacing between the head and the tape. The spacing between the magnetic head and the magnetic tape is crucial so that the recording gaps of the transducers, which are the source of the magnetic recording flux, are in near contact with the tape to effect efficient signal transfer, and so that the read element is in near contact with the tape to provide effective coupling of the magnetic field from the tape to the read element.
Typical tape heads used, for example, in the Linear Tape Open (LTO) standard are designed such that the tape must properly wrap the head to establish the proper head to tape distance. This is accomplished by using a skiving edge on the head to bleed off and prevent air from getting between the head and tape which would disrupt increase the head-tape spacing. Thus, for proper functionality, the tape must be properly wrapped around the tape head at precise angles with tight angle tolerances.